


Where The Boys Go

by atrata



Category: Crossover: Rolling Stones RPF / Harry Potter
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-28
Updated: 2006-04-28
Packaged: 2018-02-17 07:12:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2300978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atrata/pseuds/atrata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith's no good with secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where The Boys Go

**Author's Note:**

> Not my usual thing, but I had a lot of fun writing it, so. I think you can read it without knowing much about the Stones.

*

 **1954**  
Keith is ten when his best friend moves away. "Grammar school," Michael's mum tells him, but it's no school Keith's heard of. He supposes that don't mean nothing, though. Michael's heard of lots of things Keith hasn't, even if Keith thinks he's making most of them up.

He finds other boys to play with, boys who don't say his ears stick out and who've never heard of Chuck Berry.

*

Keith's no good with secrets, but Michael ain't the same since he came home for summer hols. It makes it almost easy for Keith to keep the letter to himself.

 

 **1955**  
"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat screams, and the Great Hall erupts. Keith shoots to his feet, and when Professor Dumbledore takes the hat, Keith knows he's supposed to walk off the stage and down the stairs.

He doesn't, though. He stands and stops, caught by the cheering crowd, by the noise and the heat and by things he don't have names for. He grins and waves and doesn't move.

When he finally comes down and starts making his way towards his new mates, he spots an old one sitting at the Slytherin table. He stops in his tracks and yells at Michael.

 

 **1956**  
Keith's no good at Quidditch. He likes flying, sure, but he's got no control. He keeps crashing into things, and maybe he won't ever make the team, but he's got better things to do.

*

Keith cheers when McGonagall becomes Head of Gryffindor. She may _look_ mean, but sometimes when Keith grins at her, he can tell she wants to grin right back. And since she's the Transfigurations professor, Keith reckons she's just the person to help him.

"You want to transfigure it into a _what_ , Mr Richards?"

Keith smiles, picks up his broomstick, holds it just so. "A guitar!"

 

 **1957**  
Keith's good at Potions, and not much else. He's balls at Charms and he don't care about history and the only thing he's ever transfigured is his broomstick, but that was mostly McGonagall. Potions, though. Potions he _gets_ , and it don't matter that he's not in Slughorn's club.

*

Wizards don't got records, but there's a room shows up sometimes when Keith wants to listen to real music. When the door opens one day, for a minute he thinks he's in trouble. But then Michael walks in, a Muddy Waters record under his arm, and Keith _knows_ he's in trouble.

 

 **1958**  
Some Hufflepuff first-year called Ronnie won't leave him alone, all wide eyes and stupid smiles. He talks about Michael, calls him "Mick" like they're friends. Keith's not sure Michael has friends, though it's hard to tell with Slytherins.

Keith thinks he's Michael's friend. They meet in the Room -- they don't know its name -- and mostly they play music but sometimes Michael tells him stories about dark secrets and dark wizards and death in the Hogwarts dungeons.

It makes Keith uncomfortable, so he asks McGonagall to transfigure him a harmonica. Then he listens, rapt, as Michael makes it sing.

 

 **1959**  
Keith's transfigured guitar don't cut it anymore. He needs a real one, but he can't afford it and he's not about to ask Michael for money. He's tuning out Binns' lecture when he remembers that his grandfather's got one back in Dartford.

He summons it that night from the Quidditch pitch. Mick stands there with his arms crossed and his eyes rolling and the look on his face when the guitar comes sailing through the air five minutes later is not something Keith is ever going to forget.

Keith grins and shrugs. His grandfather will know where the guitar went.

 

 **1960**  
Once Keith learns to Apparate, he stops sneaking to Hogsmeade and starts sneaking to London. Mick's been going for a while, and sometimes he let Keith come, but now Mick don't need to _let_ Keith do anything.

They hit a blues club one night and don't expect to see another wizard there, but there's some poncey Slytherin called Brian who Mick knew in school. Keith mostly remembers the rumours -- him and Slughorn, some Muggle bird he knocked up.

Keith starts to turn away, but when the poncey Slytherin picks up a guitar and _plays_ , his jaw hits the floor.

 

 **1961**  
He tries to go back to Hogwarts for his last year to finish school, even thinks about getting a nice respectable Wizarding job. That thought lasts all of two seconds.

He quits about six weeks into the term, as soon as he realises he's been at Mick's flat in London for almost three of them. He always did spend more time thinking about music than thinking about magic, and without Mick at Hogwarts, there's nothing to hold him there.

He owls Hogwarts, and then tells his mum he's quitting school and moving in with Mick and Brian. She sends cookies. 

 

 **FIN**


End file.
